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Pier Giorgio Di Cicco
Pier Giorgio Di Cicco (born July 5, 1949) is an Italian-Canadian poet. In 2005 he became the second Poet Laureate of Toronto. Life Di Cicco was born in Arezzo, Italy. His family immigrated to Canada in 1952. Di Cicco was brought up in several North American cities, among them Baltimore, Maryland; Montreal, Quebec; and Toronto, Ontario. In the early 1970s he attended the University of Toronto. While working part-time as a bartender at the university, he began to publish poems in little magazines. He has since written 13 books of poetry, and has edited a volume of verse by Italian-Canadian poets. Di Cicco gradually felt called to a Catholic religious life. Reducing his output of verse, he spent a period in an Augustinian monastery north of Toronto. Di Cicco then undertook religious studies and became a friar with a parish in Brampton, Ontario. In the 1990s he resumed writing and publishing poems, producing a selected volume and several others. He teaches at the University of Toronto. Writing Di Cicco's poems, consisting of deep images in stanzas of free verse - with lines consisting of irregular numbers of syllables and (hypothetical) feet - often referred to di Cicco's immigrant and Italian-family experiences. In books like Flying Deeper Into the Century (1982) and The Tough Romance (1979) he communicated a modern, sensitive awareness of the confusing welter of 20th-century life. Di Cicco's unmetrical but imagistic lines flowed on, often with cumulative power, to release their tension at the end of their stanzas. Recognition In 2005, he was chosen Poet Laureate of Toronto. He published a poem weekly in The Toronto Star Sunday newspaper. Publications Poetry *''We are the Light Turning''. Scarborough, ON: Missing Link Press, 1975. **revised edition. Birmingham, AB: Thunder City Press, 1976. *''Dancing in the House of Cards''. Toronto: Three Times Press, 1977. *''The Sad Facts''. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1977. *''The Circular Dark''. Ottawa: Borealis Press, 1977. *''A Burning Patience''. Ottawa: Borealis Press, 1978. *''Dolce Amaro: Nine poems''. Papavaro Press, 1978. *''The Tough Romance''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1979. *''Flying Deeper Into the Century''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982. *''Dark to Light: Reasons for humanness: Poems, 1976-1979''. Vancouver: Intermedia, 1983. *''Women We Never See Again''. Ottawa: Borealis Press, 1984. *''Post-Sixties Nocturne''. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books / Goose Lane Editions, 1985. *''Virgin Science: Hunting holistic paradigms''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986. *''Living in Paradise: New and selected poems''. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2001. *''The Honeymoon Wilderness''. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2002. *''The Dark Time of Angels''. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2003. *''Dead Men of the Fifties''. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2004. *''The Visible World''. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2006. *''Ash Wednesday''. Toronto: Tall Tree Press, 2006. *''5 Poets'' (by Charles Simic, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Don McKay, Jason Heroux, & Clemens Starck). Toronto: Tall Tree Press, 2006. *''Names of Blessing''. Toronto: Novalis, 2009. Non-fiction *''Municipal Mind: Manifestos for the creative city''. Toronto: Mansfield Press, 2007. Edited *''Roman Candles: An anthology of poems by seventeen Italo-Canadian poets''. Toronto: Hounslow Press, 1978. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 4, 2014. See also *List of Canadian poets References Notes External links ;Poems *Poems by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco at ascent magazine (5 poems) *Di Cicco, Pier Giorgio (1949- ) at Representative Poetry Online (18 poems) ;Books *Pier Giorgio Di Cicco at Amazon.com *Selected Bibliography of Works by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco at English-Canadian Writers ;Audio / video *Pier Giorgio Di Cicco at YouTube ;About *Pier Giorgio Di Cicco in the Canadian Encyclopedia *"Seeking the Divine", profile at UofT Magazine *Pier Giorgio Di Cicco at English-Canadian Writers Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian poets Category:Italian emigrants to Canada Category:20th-century poets Category:21st-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Poets Laureate of Toronto